It's Sick, It's Vile, It's Educated, It's Healthcare

We shouldn't give up on health care or the promise of having real public health care in our country. When I see the beligerent Americans shouting in town halls, babbling endlessly about going back to an America the Founding Fathers had intended; you know, all white, Christian and people that care more about their wallets then their neighbor, I have to wonder if we aren't already lost. And any analogy of Obama to Hitler is ludicrous. Barney Frank said it best to a woman who stood up in front of him and said healthcare is like the Nazi regime: "Arguing with you is like arguing with the dining room table, I just won't do it." It's a lazy and stupid analogy regardless.

I've worked for big companies for over two decades and I can recognize manipulation when I see it. Insurance companies are full of them: hordes of men and women with MBA's and mediocre college degrees getting together and denying their responsibility to their fellow man. Using a spreadsheet and clever media manipulation to deny the obvious to so many.

I have a few thoughts on health care. It's essentially the same as public education; we need to give it away and lavish on it. It's a good people investment for our country and it's exactly the kind of thing our founding fathers could not have foreseen but absolutely would have wanted. If you don't believe me, go back to high school civics and this time worry less about your tests and more about what the book and teacher is saying. Ok, something more constructive? We live in a living Democracy, the Constitution and Bill Of Rights are not static documents. Google HR476 (one of the proposed bills in the House Of Representatives for health care). It is very straightforward and is the least we can do.

We are being manipulated. Quite heavily at this point. Let me Are public roads, schools, fireman, parks and the like socialist? Hardly! Is the Vets Administration or the Pentagon a bunch of socialists? Nope. Yet they are all paid for by our collective pooled taxes. I'll give you a not so subtle situation I found myself in just recently. In speaking with a manager in my firm, I had a not so subtle reminder that if I didn't "make my number" I could get a tap on the shoulder and I'd be looking for a new job in no time. What would my family do without income, health care and all of the wonder the firm blesses upon my humble self? I better pull in much more money for the firm or who knows what could happen? Doesn't sound like that has much to do with a friendly doctor's visit or choosing my doctor or single payer now, does it?

I also had another experience this week that struck me as strange. I had almost $1000 bill dropped in my lap for my kids wellness visits. Both my wife and I went into shock when we saw the bill and we were launched into a half a day of insurance call centers and very belligerent billing staffers at medical facilities. The bills we received were literally out of the blue; my whole family has extensive insurance and the bills went back almost 3 years! We think we may have gotten it all sorted out yet I am still going to be out well over $140; my wife warns me daily that nothing is done until we have some kind of paper saying it is done so I am keeping my joy under wraps until then.

I relate these two experiences because they are not in theory. They are real things that happen to me and thousands of others every day. And they happen so often I do know that they are not mere coincidence. Perhaps the health care industry is a bit more concerned over a crack that happens with public health care; public oversight. Right now, there is very little legislation to stop an insurer and a doctor from forcing me to pay $1k in medical bills they say I owe. And the system is so confusing, at some point it becomes completely futile to fight it.

Granted, the government doesn't have a good record of uncomplicating things, check out the tax code for the last 40 years. However our society is largely defined by how we treat the weakest in it, the one's that can't care for themselves. I have to wonder if and when we'll all find ourselves in that position some day. I hope we all have great health and care by then.

Marc

Scrooge Is Still With Us In The Guise Of Corporations

Today's New York Times has an interesting lead article on the efforts of the governors of three states, California, Illinois, and Pennsylvania, to expand health care coverage to all in each of their states. The efforts came up short all around due to opposition from insurance companies and business interests. That's no surprise. What is a surprise is just how far this country has slipped into corporate control; and the extent to which profit for the shareholders is more important than anything else, even the general welfare of the citizenry. Charles Dickens would recognize what has happened to America as it has regressed back to a society ruled by corporate Scrooges. What kind of shock will it take to break the iron grip of the vested interests?

Photo: The Nutcracker and Clara from the Macy's holiday light show.

Jim

Krugman Hammers Obama Again

Noted economist and New York Times Op-Ed columist Paul Krugman keeps on hammering Barak Obama. A couple of weeks ago Krugman wrote that Obama used right wing talking points when he declared that there is a Social Security "crisis." Now, Krugman thinks that Obama is using the same tactics in the health care debate - using right wing rhetoric to buttress his health care plan, which Krugman thinks is sub-standard and not as desirable as the health care plans being offered by Obama's rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards:

I recently castigated Mr. Obama for adopting right-wing talking points about a
Social Security “crisis.” Now he’s echoing right-wing talking points on health
care.
What seems to have happened is that Mr. Obama’s caution, his
reluctance to stake out a clearly partisan position, led him to propose a
relatively weak, incomplete health care plan. Although he declared, in his
speech announcing the plan, that “my plan begins by covering every American,” it didn’t — and he
shied away from doing what was necessary to make his claim true.
Now, in the
effort to defend his plan’s weakness, he’s attacking his Democratic opponents
from the right — and in so doing giving aid and comfort to the enemies of
reform.

Is Obama the new Bill Clinton? By that I mean, is he trying to placate both sides on every issue? This could be. Remember, he invited an anti-gay singer-preacher on a recent campaign tour, even though he claims to be a strong supporter of gay rights. He can't have it both ways on all the issues.

PHOTO: Boat House Row on the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia. These boat houses serve as the headquarters for the "Schuylkill Navy," the rowing teams from the various local high schools and colleges.

Jim

The Economy Is Broken And It Will Be Tough To Fix

Fall seems to have arrived all at once last week. The change of the seasons, marked by the colors of the leaves on the trees in Fairmount Park, exploded upon us finally, and all at once seemingly. I suppose that the unusually warm weather in October is responsible for this. In any event it was a joy to walk and take photographs around Thanksgiving. The rains today will no doubt knock off the majority of the colorful leaves that were so pretty just last week.

If the economy is so good then why are Americans pessimistic about it when they are asked? Paul Krugman, writing in today's New York Times, thinks that the good times enjoyed by the wealthy are simply not trickling down to the masses. Workers' salaries are not keeping up with inflation. This, combined with the worsening health care situation, is why we are not feeling good about the economy. Krugman thinks this will be tough to fix no matter who is elected the next president:

The next president won’t be able to deliver another era of good times unless
he or she manages to tackle the longer-term trends that underlie today’s
economic disappointment: a collapsing health care system and inexorably rising
inequality.

Of course, the Iraq debacle is also part of the problem. We spend enough on that war to fix health care, I believe. By the way, the recent reports that "The Surge" is working should not make us feel good about an illegal war that should never have been started in the first place. It ought to end now by the start of a full withdrawal of American troops. It's about oil, and we should address the oil problem responsibly and not by invading other countries.

Jim

US Health Care Is Expensive Because We're Wealthy

...says the New York Times. That's nice. They are short on solutions to the problem, however, and they do not favor a single payer plan, what they term "Medicare For All." But this is the way that other countries have tackled the problem. Sure, there are issues in those systems, but at least no one is left totally without coverage.

Some states are not waiting for the federal government to act. Maybe some solutions will come out of the states. Nothing much good ever comes out of Congress. That's thanks to the "genius" of the Framers, who were afraid of too much change.

PHOTO: Philadelphia's Academy Of Music. This beautiful mid-nineteenth century opera house is one of this city's architectural and artistic gems. We'll be there this afternoon for a performance of "Hansel And Gretel," the wonderful Humperdink opera that is so well loved especially at the holidays.

Jim

Andrew Sullivan: No Problem WIth The Wealthy Getting Better Health Care

Gay conservative Andrew Sullivan, in discussing Michael Moore's movie "Sicko," writes on his blog:

I see no problem with the wealthy having access to better care than the
less wealthy...It seems to me that this is equivalent to saying: I see no
problem with living in a free society.

Now, let's see how many other items will fit nicely into this warped
formulation:

1. I see no problem with child labor, it seems to me that this is equivalent
to saying: I see no problem with living in a free
society.

2. I see no problem with workers having to earn their livelihood
toiling under unsafeworking conditions, it seems to me...,
etc.

3. I see no problem with workers not being able to organize or strike for better wages and working conditions, it seems to me...etc.

etc., etc., Again, Sullivan's warped conservative view that liberty always totally trumps equality is symptomatic of the skewed conservative philosophy that is preoccupied with liberty and unconcerned with justice. It is indicative of a case of arrested philosophical development, a fixation on Hobbsian/Lockeian self-interest as the sole driving force of human endeavor, without regard to the possibility of Humeian benevolence. For conservatives, the liberty/equality equation is zero sum, which is a reaction to the demise of the feudal state that gave rise to Hobbsian thought. The correct formulation is sum sum. We can have both liberty and a just society that addresses inequality, as formulated in the writings of John Rawls. I do see a problem with the wealthy having better access to health care than the less wealthy. It offends my sense of justice. Apparently, Sullivan has no sense of justice.

Jim